Menu

Unpopular Opinion Tag (Films)

This post came about by accident as I was commenting on Vinnie’s film review about Lost in Translation, and it has turned into this post which is inspired by the Unpopular Opinion Book Tags that are popular (pun intended!). Those that get tagged, make sure to tag me in your answers as I am eager to see what popular films people dislike. If you haven’t been tagged, feel free to join in!!

My 3 Unpopular Opinion Films are; Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, A Rebel Without a Cause and Lost In Translation. Do you like those films, or are you like and didn’t think much to them?

The premise is unique and I appreciated the idea of someone revisiting memories and erasing them, but there were various aspects of the film that just ruined my viewing experience. The timeline and POVs are a bit chaotic. The crux of my dislike for the film is that it is too chaotic and messy, the writers/director have tried too hard to create a quirky, intellectual film that comes across as overlong nonsense. The timeline, POVs and storyline is messy, constantly flicking back and forth between past events and the present.

This featured in a Classic Film Ratings post I did a while ago. It draws comparison to Catcher in the Rye which I also disliked. I didn’t/couldn’t identify with James Dean’s character, and his acting felt like it was overacted. Here is the short review that I wrote when I first watched Rebel:

I think the real reason that this film achieved a ‘classic’ status is due to the fact that James Dean died so young and this being his last film, rather than the strength of his acting performance or the film. The film received acclaim as it was the first film to really focus on the teenager, and the various problems that were never before focused upon. Dean’s acting is nothing exceptional but not bad, though there were a couple of scenes which left me perplexed that he had received a BAFTA nomination for this performance. The first was a scene with his mother and father, where Jim is arguing with them and the language used by him is utterly unrealistic and only used for social comment and effect. The second occurs after the death of Mineo’s character and Dean attempts to cry and it came across as a live performance gone wrong, and I wondered how on earth it made the fine edit as Dean’s attempt to cry were unsuccessful and it surely should have been redone.

I think got bored. Too subtle. Not much happened. Tried too hard to be subtle, nuanced. Scarlett Johansson’s acting was the positive I took from the film.

One thing I felt uncomfortable with was the racism directed towards the Japanese people. Their ways, who they are, what they do, how they look, what they eat, always seemed to be the butt of the joke. There are no meaningful Japanese characters in the film that is set in Japan, which is disappointing from a writing/directing point of view. Having looked up the film online, there are articles and news stories of anti-racism campaigners trying to prevent the film from winning awards.

Nice idea for the post! I do not “get” Lost In Translation at all – its merit/style is lost on me. I found it very dull, I have to admit. As for this tag, I am keen to participate, but maybe a bit later, thank you!

I’ve never watched Lost in Translation as it just hasn’t appealed. Neither has the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I’ve seen Rebel Without a Cause expecting something much…I don’t know…bigger…better… It was OK…but not at all what I was expecting from all the hype.

Feel free and join in and do an Unpopular Opinion post Annie! I would be very interested to know the films you dislike/hate haha 🙂
Maybe I should give it another watch and see if I like it any better second time around..

It’s been a long time since I saw Lost in Translation. I can’t argue against “Not much happened”, but that’s just the style of the film. And saying that it was “trying too hard” is something you could probably say about any film if you wanted to.

But I think you are totally wrong about the “racism”. These two characters are completely isolated in a completely alien world. They do not speak the language, and there are barely any signs in English. This is Japanese we are talking about, not Spanish where you might feel you can recognise a word or two – these two characters are actually “lost”. That “there are no meaningful Japanese characters in the film” is an important part of that, because it highlights the two characters’ isolation. These two characters stick together, like two shipwrecked people, and they look at this alien culture as mere observers because they are not (and cannot be) part of it; and if they do make fun of their environment, it is to comfort each other and to be able to laugh at the absurdity of their own situation.